A Nest

A Nest

         Three rifles sat over the stove; an empty packet of cigarettes; three damp pairs of socks; and a bare marijuana stem, too. Theophilus’s eyes darted back from the motorcycle parked outside to them two sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor. He picked up a cigarette from between his toes and placed it on the tip of his mouth.
“So, what became of the lady then?” he said, tracing back his thoughts to the story.
“Well, the lady apparently gave birth a few months later, like, three or four months after the whole thing. And then she just moved away.”
“With the baby, you mean?” said Theophilus, now fondling a bag of coins.
“Yup. With the baby”, answered Jacob, coolly.
“So,” he continued, “the moral of the story is?”
Jacob placed the top of his hat over his brow and answered almost prophetically:
“Don’t go runnin’ your mouth when people’s money’s involved. Not even if you’re some pregnant woman naïve enough to think a guy wouldn’t punch holes through you to get to some money. Some money that could serve one well up to fifteen years off the fence post.”
         Ollie then broke out in a hysterical fit of laughter uncharacteristic of the behemoth of a man that towered over them two sitting there, Theophilus now pressing his chest against his legs. They both glanced over, ridding themselves of any doubt to as the reason for his broken silence. Jacob pressed open the bag of pork rinds sitting atop the table over the three of them still sitting on the kitchen tiles. Pressing the confection against the side of his open mouth he said:
“So, what’s the reason we’re all hidin’ here again?”
“Evelyn has been snoopin’ around the cottage again. Only this time she actually found somethin’ worth talkin’ about.”
“Seriously?”
“Yup” the word popped from the tip of his lips. Theophilus had begged both of them before to keep a low profile while making their way down to the dingy where they’d lay low for the weekend. Ollie had driven far and wide previous to the occasion, following a stint on the outskirts of McCormick waiting on a bounty that never really made itself worthy. After three days on the prowl he’d given up hope and returned to the natal corner of the world they called Peludo. Jacob, on the other hand, had been jobless for well over a year when Theophilus’ call found its way to a friend of his who’d welcomed the drifter into his home for the better part of a trimester. Their reasons varied, rest assured, but the welcoming tip of a petrol mine a few miles down the way had placed each of their own motives to relative rest, considering how everything had apparently made its way back as in circles that ring around the towers of Echelon.
“And what’s it that she found?” asked Ollie, his parched tongue scratching the top of his palate. Theophilus unknowingly cleared his throat then, having noticed the giant of a man’s own sorry state of dehydration.
“Well” he said, “the thing is that I’ve been buying up scrap metal for the past two years in hopes of getting on with an old plan of mine from way back. From way back from when we were all younger and everything.”

Cristian Guzmán Cardona
(excerpt)